Parent Involvement Committee

May 16th, 2018

By Brent Hutzal – Brent is co-chair of Parent Involvement Committee. He has two daughters, Kate (8), who attends Bridgeport Public School, and Claire (almost 3) will be attending Bridgeport Public School JK Class of 2019-20.

Are you passionate about education? Are you interested in helping the school board engage with parents? Are you looking to make a difference in our school board and in our region?

If you answered “yes” to the above, then we would love to have a chat with you.

You see, the Parent Involvement Committee (PIC) of the WRDSB is looking for dedicated parents and community members like you – applications for membership to PIC are being accepted from now until June 1st and I would personally like to invite you to consider this opportunity.

If you are interested in applying or have any questions, we invite you to a casual drop-in information session on Tuesday, May 22 from 5:30 to 6:20 p.m. in the Cambridge Room at the WRDSB Education Centre (51 Ardelt Avenue, Kitchener).

About PIC

Every school board in Ontario is mandated by the Ministry of Education to have a PIC, and we are very fortunate at WRDSB to have a Director of Education, John Bryant, and senior staff, who wholeheartedly support PIC and parent engagement.

PIC meets six times per year at the school board office (the Ed Centre) on 51 Ardelt Avenue in Kitchener. Our group consists of 14 parent members, the Director of Education, one Trustee, one elementary and one secondary administrator, one teacher and one to three community representatives (shout out to our current community member, Bill Davidson, Executive Director of Langs). We discuss how to better engage parents in the school board, we provide feedback related to school board policy, we provide information and advice to WRDSB related to parent engagement, we undertake activities to help parents support their child’s learning at home and at school, and we share and communicate various resources for parents whose children are enrolled in WRDSB.

PIC operates a number of subcommittees that support parent engagement and the committee operationally. If you have skills and interest in communications, social media, finance, policy, grant writing, or event planning, you can play a vital role in the WRDSB PIC moving forward.

I invite you learn more about PIC and about the application process. Please do not hesitate to contact us at pic@wrdsb.ca if you have any questions. Please keep in mind that applications are due by Friday, June 1st at 4:30PM.

I will leave you with a quote from the Ministry of Education: “Parents play a vital role in the development and education of their children and in the success of schools. They are the most important influence in a child’s life outside of school. Long after direct learning from parents in a child’s early years gives way to formal education, parents continue to play a key role in student success through the attitudes they help to share and the direct supports they provide.”

The fundamental fact is that Parents + Engagement = Student Success.

Your involvement with PIC can help WRDSB optimize this equation. Thank you in advance for your consideration of this great volunteer opportunity and we hope to see your application.

Brent Hutzal and the entire Parent Involvement Committee

Parent Posts are written by parents, for parents in collaboration with PIC. This series features guest parent bloggers where they share resources and information with other parents. We invite you to email and let us know if there are other topics you’d like to learn more about on Parent Posts.